Red Sea diving vs. other parts of the world

[viakovlev]

Hello fellow divers, I am hoping to get some advice on Red Sea diving plans. We plan to go in late August. Would like to see the pyramids and then finish off diving. it will probably be our one and only trip to Egypt, so we need to plan well. The information about quality of diving there is very confusing. I feel that there is more masked promotion that true descriptions on the net. We dove in South Pacific, Australia, Maldives, Caribbean, Galapagos, Sipadan... but not Red Sea yet. Therefore we will see things in comparison. What I understand the North Red Sea routes are mainly wrecks, Thiselgorm as a must do. The South is promoted as pelagic site. Now, the bad descriptions by experienced divers say that the North is busy as a shopping mall and quite depleted of coral and fish compared to other parts of the world. The South is also described as not too colorful and some people do not even see a single shark.

The main question I am hoping to get an answer, what would be better:?
-liveaboard to the North, where the wrecks are always there, and bite the bullet diving at busy locations, not expect much of coral and marine life
a possible failure - the sites are too busy to enjoy, the wrecks are over hyped, marine life is too depleted
-liveaboard to the South, hoping that there will be white tip, hammerheads, dolphins etc. following us on each dive (can it compare with Wolf/Darwin?)
a possible failure - no pelagics, dull diving, pretty much wasted opportunity to dive Thislegorm etc

A possible recommendation for a luxury liveaboard with less people on a boat and more space?

Many thanks to all who answer!!!
Vladimir, Canada

 

[Tigerman]

If people tell you theres no coral and fish in the red sea they have no clue whatsoever what theire talking about.
If you go to areas like Ras Mohammed or Strait of Tiran, yes it will be lots of divers, but there will also be LOTS of life. Summer is also when fish are schooling at sites like Shark & Yolanda so there is likely to be HUGE schools of barracuda, snappers and unicornfish there. Thats also the time of the year where we found a sailfish hunting there..
Liveaboards is very much up to the iteniary and I cannot comment much on them but there are sites for liveaboards that has rather high successrates with sharks.

Of the rest of your sites I have only been to a few sites in the caribbean and they where around cozumel and cancun and the colors and life there was nowhere near what I see in the red sea even on a bad day..
The LOCAL Sharm El Sheikh sites may not be so colorful, but they have some interesting macro life - and to mess up photographers - big rays like to pass by there..

---------- Post added April 4th, 2013 at 03:30 PM ----------

There is one more thing I should mention about the red sea diving..
The diving there has fairly strict restrictions - which is largely why the dive sites survive the heavy traffic - but it also means that any good dive op down there will subject all their new arrivals to checkout dives before youre taken to certain sites. Both for the divers safety and the integrity of the dive sites.
In effect, if you suck at diving, youll be diving locally untill you dont - and people who dive local for a week is probably gonna bitch about the bad diving as although its ok, its not nearly as good as other sites..

 

[viakovlev]

Thanks for this info. As far as I understand liveaboards may avoid traffic of the day boats. That is why we still target liveaboard at the North. Would be right?

I have only been to a few sites in the caribbean and they where around cozumel and cancun and the colors and life there was nowhere near what I see in the red sea even on a bad day..

That sounds about right. Caribbean is not a healthy area anymore. Cancun is probably one of the worst. Cozumel is better that but still relatively dull. We are going to Bahamas soon, but only for the shark feeding. Otherwise, I cannot recommend Caribbean, except for some special dives like cenotes, shark feeds, chasing whales/whale sharks.

 

[Tigerman]

Liveaboards generally do tend to leave the sites both visit as the dayboats arrive.
I havent felt the need of doing liveaboards in the red sea given the quality of the dayboat diving and the fact that I dont wanna risk getting stuck on a boat for a week with someone I can't stand, so I dont know how the liveaboard traffic gets on the more popular liveaboard sites..

I actually saw more interesting stuff at cancun than around cozumel tbh. Not as big and steep, but more fish (and shark).

 

[Golo]

I've been to Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Egypt for diving.

I've been a bit south of Safaga, diving from a resort, and I'd say there were more vivid colors under water than in Thailand or Japan, but less than in Indonesia, at least where I have been.
Didn't see sharks, but we didn't really care what we'd see or what not, so we didn't make any special requests. Saw a Dugong though, and the house reef was visited by dolphins while we were there (but we were out by boat that day, sadly).

I did not like the other stuff though. In the other places we'd go out and have dinner in a different restaurant every day, or go and visit some local temples, the market, etc. etc., but in Egypt we were at a resort, with nothing but desert around. The best food we had was on the dive boat, prepared by the crew. It was very simple food, but so much more interesting than the resort food. We also went in August, and it was hot! We did a day tour to a bedouin village, which felt awefully staged, and a trip to Luxor, which was long and tiresome, plus it was hot!

If I'd rank the overall experience, Egypt would be last on my list, but solely for diving I would and probably will go back there, most likely on a liveaboard though.

 

[Tigerman]

Staying in a resort you wont have much options. If you stay somwhere like Sharm El Sheikh, you'll have restaurants all over the place and some of them is actually pretty good, not only by local standards. However, you DON'T go to Egypt for the brilliant food...

July/August/September in Egypt IS hot - you can expect 35-40c/95-105c in the shade every day at that time of the year. I would never go there for a poolside/beach vacation for sure..

 

[Imla]

The red sea is abundand with life! Ras Mohammed, and especially Shark&Yolanda and Small Crack were wonderful.
Personally I can recommend Snefro Fleet liveaboards. I went with Snefro Spirit. Fab boat, good food, nitrox included, Pino and Oli were our fab guides.
Our group had 4 amazing dives ALONE on the Thistlegorm. (Which is quite amazing as on average 220 divers do the wreck every day)

Edit: I would never stay in a resort if I have an alternative (ie live aboard). It is quite impossible to venture out of the hotels without getting hassled. Especially if you're a woman.

If you are diving from a resort, I can recommend the Hyatt Regency. They have a satellite dive op from Red Sea Diving College. (Who just won Dive Centre of the Year'12 and 6 of the past 7 years from Diver Awards) (They do cater to a few russian divers, but separate them on separate boats or with separate guides. I have not had any problems with them)

 

[TSandM]

On the two liveaboard trips I've done, we've had very little trouble with crowded dive sites. Even at the Brothers Islands, where there were four or five boats moored, it seemed as though we dove different enough sites that we didn't really run into anybody. We had MUCH more trouble with crowding in Bunaken and in Cozumel.

I loved our Southern itinerary, although we only saw one shark in four or five days (an oceanic whitetip that was hanging out under the boat). The habilis, or submerged reefs, had a variety of color and shape of hard coral I've not seen anywhere else, and there were a lot of diverse reef animals -- fish, rays, eels -- enough to keep us happy with our cameras. We saw dolphins, too.

The wrecks in the North are interesting and pretty accessible, and the Thistlegorm is the best wreck dive I've done anywhere. We did see some other divers on that dive, but not too many.

I've been to the South Pacific, including Rangiroa, to Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, and Cozumel. The Red Sea was not as colorful or full of macro critters as Indonesia, and didn't have the abundance of fish we saw in Byron Bay. But the corals were MUCH more interesting and beautiful than the South Pacific (in fact, the diving in general was just plain better, except for Rangiroa) or Hawaii. I really enjoyed the Red Sea, which is why we went back for a second trip.

 

[Tigerman]

I think the thing with the red sea really isnt that each of the sites is the best youll find in the world, but the fact that all of them could make the top 50..
Its just an amazingly high density of very good sites

 

[viakovlev]

Thanks for the posts. So, what I am gathering:
-Soth: coral at the South sites is healthy, but chances are that large sharks may not come. Would be pretty relaxing dives, not special not horrible.
-North: Thislegorm is worth diving, North sites may be OK beyond wrecks
-Liveaboard is still a better option for diving, can avoid crowds, no hassle of getting on/off the boat, travel time to and from dive sites is not wasted (we cannot stand drinking/eating crowds and large hotels, not too picky with food, mainly eat just fish and salad, need wine though).